Many attempts have been made in the past to provide two dimensional displays which appear to be three dimensional. In Victorian times, stereophotographs were very popular. These images were produced with a binocular camera that made two images of the object being photographed, each image's perspective being spaced from the other. When viewed with a stereopticon, which is a device that shows each of the viewers' eyes the appropriate one of the two images, a three dimensional image is perceived by the viewer.
In addition to stereophotographs, three dimensional motion pictures have been created wherein the members of the audience wear glasses, with right and left lenses either of two different color filters or with polarizing lenses having two different polarizing angles, and two motion pictures with slightly different perspectives are simultaneously projected onto the screen through filters complementary to the lenses in the glasses. This results in one eye of each audience member seeing one of the projected films and the second eye seeing another of the projected films, and the different perspectives of the films result in a perception by the audience members of a three dimensional display.
Both stereophotographs and three dimensional motion pictures suffer from disadvantages in that they require their viewers to use special hardware, the stereopticon or filter glasses, to view the image.
Another method of making a viewer perceive a three dimensional image from a two dimensional display is to employ the Pulfrich Effect, invented by Carl Pulfrich and published in Die Naturwissenschaften, in the June through September 1922 issues. The Pulfrich Effect makes use of an inherent effect of the human visual perception system. Specifically, a very dark filter is placed over one eye of the viewer who then observes a displayed object moving back and forth horizontally across a two dimensional display. Due to latency in how the human brain processes low light images relative to normally lit images, the viewer perceives the displayed object as moving into and out of the two dimensional display. While interesting, the Puifrich Effect has limited practical applications and still requires special observer hardware, in this case one dark filter.
Another technique for providing a three dimensional image from a two dimensional display is the hologram. In holography, an image is captured as an interference pattern at the film. Coherent light from a laser is reflected from an object to be imaged and is combined at the film with light from a reference beam. Holograms enable the viewer to view a true three-dimensional image which exhibits parallax.
Unfortunately, holograms also suffer from disadvantages in that they are difficult to create and display and are unsuited for video, motion pictures or the like. Also, holograms have constrained angles over which they can be viewed. Further, while they do produce accurate three dimensional images of objects, the color and appearance of the resulting image is not lifelike.
A method, system and apparatus which permits the relatively easy creation and display of video images which are perceived by viewers as three dimensional displays, without requiring the viewers to use any special hardware, is desired.